Huey Lewis

During their 1980s heyday, frontman Huey Lewis brought soul to a string of pop-rock hits generated by his band, the News, including the No. 1 singles "Power of Love," "Stuck with You" and "Jacob's Lad...
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R&B singer/songwriter Don Covay dead at 76

By:
WENN.com
Feb 03, 2015

R&B singer/songwriter Don Covay has died, aged 76. The hitmaker, who wrote songs that would be recorded by the likes of the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin, passed away in his sleep on 31 January (15).
Born Donald Randolph in South Carolina, Covay first tasted success with Pony Time, which reached number one in the U.S. as a Chubby Checker track in 1962. He also enjoyed a hit with 1964's Mercy Mercy, which featured Jimi Hendrix on guitar. That track would later be covered by the Stones.
Franklin scored hits with Covay's Chain of Fools and See Saw, while he also penned hits for Solomon Burke, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Wilson Pickett, Little Richard, Etta James and Otis Redding. His own recordings have been covered by Bobby Womack and the Small Faces, among others.
He was also an early member of 1950s doo-wop group Rainbows, which would later feature Marvin Gaye, the Soul Clan, who performed alongside Solomon Burke, Ben E. King and Joe Tex, and 1960s act the Jefferson Lemon Blues Band, who charted with Black Woman.
He enjoyed a string of solo hits in the early 1970s, including I Was Checkin' Out, She Was Checkin' In, Somebody's Been Enjoying My Home, and It's Better to Have (And Don't Need).
Beloved among his fellow musicians, Covay was the subject of a 1993 tribute album, featuring the likes of Rolling Stones stars Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood, Bobby Womack, Iggy Pop and Todd Rundgren.
Despite battling health issues following a stroke, he continued to record and released his last album of new material, Adlib, in 2000. It featured guest spots from Wilson Pickett and Huey Lewis, among others, and cover art by Ronnie Wood.
His final album, a hits compilation titled Super Bad, was released in 2009.

"I still will be in, like, some random hotel lobby somewhere or a store and that song still comes on the radio, it's mortifying! It's a good song and everything but, like, it's just embarrassing when you're somewhere and you have to hear your own singing voice." Gwyneth Paltrow hates to hear Cruisin', her hit Huey Lewis collaboration from the film Duets, when she's out and about.

HBO
We got 86 hours of genre-defining television to digest, examine, ruminate on, live in, and yet we’ve still barely managed to pull our minds away from the last three seconds. The Sopranos may be regarded as the greatest dramatic TV series of all time, but four out of five conversations about the show these days surround its divisive ambiguous ending: “So what do you think,” we inevitably say to whomever we’ve found ourselves trading Sal impressions and praise of the “Pine Barrens” episode, “is Tony dead?” On Wednesday, the world found Sopranos creator David Chase’s — so fed up with the resilience of the question that he finally caved in a conversation with Vox writer Martha P. Nochimson — perspective on the matter: (and here’s his answer, for those wishing to stay in the dark)
Of course, Chase maintains that his is not the definitive ruling, that each and every viewer has equal authority on the case of Tony’s survival. Personally, I’ve always held to the belief that the family man/family man never made it out of that Italian restaurant, though I’ve had friends plead the alternative with terrific cases. More important to you than what anyone else thinks (be he a fellow viewer or even the creator of the series in question) is what you think, as your experience and relationship and with the show is yours to understand as you see fit. So what do you think about The Sopranos, and other shows and movies bearing likewise ambiguous conclusions? Let us know!
THE SOPRANOS: Did Tony die?
Yes: As Bobby Bacala said about death, “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?”
No: That would be a thematic copout! Tony lives on with the demons he’s collected.
INCEPTION: Does the movie end in a dream?
Yes: Leo finds himself stuck in the prison (or paradise) of his own subconscious, destined to live forever with the mental projections of his children.
No: Cobb puts the incepting game behind him and returns home to the loving embrace of his children.
BLADE RUNNER: Is Deckard a replicant?
Yes: Just follow the unicorn.
No: But the jury’s out on Harrison Ford himself.
AMERICAN PSYCHO: Was it all in his head?
Yes: The Bret Easton Ellis adaptation is just a metaphorical glimpse into the menace and greed that lines our materialistic society.
No: That much Huey Lewis could turn anyone into a murdering lunatic.
SHUTTER ISLAND: Was it all in his head?
Yes: Man, Leo really needs to start playing folks with a better grip on reality than these dudes seem to have.
No: Trust us, Ashcliffe ain’t no Maui.
TOTAL RECALL: Okay, but was it all in HIS head?!
Yes: The whole thing was a falsified memory… just like we choose to believe about the remake.
No: We don’t want to live in a reality where “Consider this a divorce!” never happened.
BARTON FINK: Speaking of heads, was there a head in Barton's box?
Yes: What else could it be? John Goodman practically told us that outright!
No: The whole episode was a conconction of the writer's own imagination anyhow.
DAWN OF THE DEAD: Do Peter and Francince make it to safety?
Yes: There's gotta be somewhere out there that they can lay low to wait out this nightmare.
No: Humanity is doomed. They're no exception.
LOST: Were they dead the whole time?
Yes: Plane crashed. Passengers died. Island gave them the sort of afterlife they don’t tell you about in Hebrew school.
No: What, you can’t believe in a few smoke monsters, teleporting polar bears, mystical numeric patterns, omnipotent lighthouses, and a pair of immortal twins?
THE SHINING: Do you have any idea what happened at the end of that one?
Yes: Sure, it’s clear as day! He — whoops, gotta go!
No: For that matter, what the hell is going on in this scene?

Columbia Pictures via Everett Collection
"Who you gonna call?" If you had shouted that anywhere in the country during the summer of 1984, a multitude of voices would've screamed "Ghostbusters!" back at you.
The paranormal comedy starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and directed by Ivan Reitman was an immediate smash with its mix of broad humor and special effects hitting a home run with kids and their parents. You probably remember the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man that nearly destroys New York, but here are some fun facts that you might not know.
When Aykroyd was originally writing his script for the movie he intended for John Belushi and Eddie Murphy to play Peter Venkman and Winston, the roles that eventually went to Murray and Ernie Hudson. Belushi died while he was still working on the script and the shooting schedule for Beverly Hills Cop forced Murphy to drop out.
John Candy was cast initially in the role of Louis, who becomes possessed by the Keymaster. Candy quit after Reitman wouldn't let him do the character his way, which included speaking with a German accent. He was replaced by Rick Moranis, who was Candy's longtime costar on SCTV.
It's all in the marketing. The initial advertising for the movie was simply posters with the "No Ghost" logo, followed by the Ghostbusters' car (Ecto-1) being driven around New York City without explanation.
After the movie opened, Reitman created a trailer out of the commercial in the film which gave a working 800 number. The number led to a message of Murray and Aykroyd saying that they were out catching ghosts. It reportedly received an average of 1,000 calls an hour every hour for six weeks.
Stay-Puft Marshmallows is not a real product, but in the movie there's a pack of them in Sigourney Weaver's apartment as well as a billboard on the side of a building advertising them.
Rietman was originally planning on doing a film version of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. When the director and his producing partners contacted Aykroyd about being part of the project he instead pitched them his ghost movie.
The famous theme song by Ray Parker Jr. was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks. Parker has said in interviews that he was inspired to write the song as a jingle in line with the commercial in the film after he saw a TV spot for a local plumber while trying to overcome a bout of writer's block. Huey Lewis apparently disagreed with that version of events since he sued Parker claiming that the melody plagiarized his song "I Want a New Drug." The dispute was resolved by an out-of-court settlement.
On the DVD commentary, Rietman confirms that Aykroyd's original script was set in the future where there were teams of Ghostbusters all over the world, with sci-fi touches like the Ecto-1 flying, and would've been too expensive to shoot. Ramis, who co-wrote Animal House and Caddyshack, was brought in to tone down Aykroyd's vision.
Ramis originally wasn't going to act in the movie, even though he had previously starred with Murray in Reitman's Stripes. He joined the cast after he formed a close association with the character while writing the script.
Ramis' character Dr. Egon Spengler was named after German philosopher Oswald Spengler who wrote The Decline of the West, which argued that all civilizations eventually break down.
Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) was originally offered the role of Gozer the Destructor. After he declined, the role was reworked and went to Yugoslavian model Slavitza Jovan.
Michael Keaton was in discussions for both the Venkman and Louis roles but turned them both down. Chevy Chase was also considered for Venkman, while Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken were among those talked about as possible Egons. Comedian Sandra Bernhard was offered the role of the Ghostbusters secretary that eventually went to Annie Potts, while Michael McKean was one of the other actors considered to replace Candy in the Louis role.
A real jail was used for the scene where the Ghostbusters are locked up, and Aykroyd believed the location to actually be haunted.
The exterior for the Ghostbusters headquarters is the real Hook and Ladder No. 8 Firehouse in the famous Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The location was almost closed as part of the city's budget cuts in 2011, but was one of 19 firehouses saved in a restructured plan by then Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The movie was the first to have veteran broadcaster Larry King appear as himself, while porn actor Ron Jeremy and pop songstress Debbie Gibson were both extras during the filming.
The scene where Weaver levitates was done in the same manner as a magician uses in a stage show. Reitman had worked with illusionist Doug Henning on the Broadway show Merlin and was familiar with how the trick was done.
Actor William Atherton, who plays the Ghostbusters' nemesis Walter Peck, has long claimed in interviews that for years after the movie was released he would have people yelling at him on the street for his treatment of Murray and company. He said that it even led to physical altercations in bars. Atherton went on to play sleazy reporter Richard Thornburg in Die Hard and Die Hard 2.
The ghost that wreaks havoc on the Sedgewick Hotel didn't have a name in the script. The model that was used on set was nicknamed "Onion Head" because of its smell and Aykroyd joked that it was the ghost of Belushi. Fans of the movie started calling it Slimer and the name stuck, eventually being used in the animated series that the movie spawned.
Unbeknownst to the producers, Filmation had made a short-lived animated series in 1975 called The Ghost Busters. Heading off a potential lawsuit, Columbia paid Filmation a fee for using the name.
Murray agreed to do the movie only if Columbia Pictures would provide the funding for a film version of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Razor's Edge that he would star in. Murray's pet project was released later in 1984 and made $6.6-million at the box office. Ghostbusters grossed more than $238-million in the United States alone.
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Lionsgate via Everett Collection
There are certain songs that transport you back to movie scenes as soon as you hear them. Sometimes that makes you feel warm inside, sometimes it inspires you, and other times it gives you the willies. We're taking a look at the songs that we can't help but associate with the big screen, toucing on the best love songs in films and the most inspirational songs in movies. Here, though, we take a look at the pop songs that suddenly became creepy once these movies got ahold of them.
"Hip To Be Square" in American Psycho
Who knew that ax-wielding psychopaths dig Huey Lewis and the News (as well as Phil Collins)? At least Christian Bale took the time to make sure not to mess up his killer designer suit.
"Stuck in the Middle with You" in Reservoir Dogs
From Steven Wright's deadpan introduction on the radio to Michael Madsen's dancing to Stealers Wheel's lone hit, everything is unsettling in Quentin Tarrantino's ear-splitting scene.
"Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in Insidious
If you're old enough to remember him, than you already know that Tiny Tim was plenty scary on his own. Adding some nightmare-inducing marionettes to his ukulele strumming is just not fair.
"Hurdy Gurdy Man" in Zodiac
Donovan was just singing about a guy playing an odd musical instrument… we're pretty sure that he wasn't looking to provide a theme song for a serial killer. David Fincher used it to such effect in his film that others followed, turning it into the go-to '60s track for creeping everyone out.
"Jessie's Girl" and "Sister Christian" in Boogie Nights
It's not a horror movie, or even a thriller, but when Alfred Molina starts smoking crack in his underwear to his mix-tape of Rick Springfield and Night Ranger it certainly is enough to weird anyone out. We jumped right along with Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly every time a firecracker went off.
"In Dreams" in Blue Velvet
The granddaddy of them all. David Lynch's movie is disturbing on any number of levels, but the scene of Dennis Hopper's sexual deviant beating the snot out of Kyle MacLachlan while Roy Orbison's voice pipes out of a car radio has been the basis for too many night terrors to count.
"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" in Pulp Fiction
The first time that you see it there isn't anything wrong with Uma Thurman dancing around to the Urge Overkill remake of a Neil Diamond song while John Travolta gives himself a bathroom pep talk. It's on the repeat viewings when you know what's going to happen afterwards that it makes you a little uneasy (especially if you're afraid of needles).
"I've Got You, Babe" in Groundhog Day and "We've Only Just Begun" in 1408
The Carpenters and Sonny and Cher are about as innocent as you can possibly get when it comes to pop music… and the two films are not anything alike. With that said, if we are ever in a hotel and the stupid clock radio starts repeatedly playing a song on its own, we're checking out right then and there. And, if the song is John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High," the tipoff to impending death in the Final Destination movies, we're running as fast as we can.
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Universal via Everett Collection
Plenty of singers try their hand at acting… some successfully (Cher, Barbara Streisand) and others not so successfully (Madonna, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, etc.). There are times, though, when we're bowled over by the musical talents of our favorite actresses.
Whether it's voicing an animated heroine or taking an unexpected role in a big budget musical, these actresses have proven that they have the pipes to belt out a tune while still delivering top-notch acting performances.
Kristen Bell
When many people saw the credits for Disney's Frozen, they assumed that Bell was just providing the speaking part for Anna, that surely it was someone else singing on "Love Is an Open Door." Even some hardcore Veronica Mars fans had lost sight of the fact that Bell came from a musical theater background or forgot about her appearance in Refer Madness: The Musical.
Anne Hathaway
So, a lot of people find Hathaway pretentious and annoying… it doesn't change the fact that the girl can sing. Audiences were surprised when her character started singing in one of her early films, Ella Enchanted, but by the time of Les Miserables, we were all aware that she had the ability. Still, her powerful rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" surprised just about everyone.
Amanda Seyfried
When Seyfried was first starting out in Mean Girls, we thought she was just another soap opera actress (she appeared on As the World Turns and All My Children) making a jump to the big time… which she subsequently did with her role on HBO's Big Love. Little known to the public, she had training in not only musical theater, but opera. It wasn't until 2008's Mamma Mia! that audiences got a taste of her singing… and then came her performance as Cosette in Les Miserables. C'est magnifique!
Emma Stone
Stone doesn't sing much because of some vocal cord issues, but when she was younger she was part of VH1's In Search of the New Partridge Family. She also did some backing vocals for the remake of The Waitresses' "I Know What Boys Like" from The House Bunny. It was her performance during the school assembly scene of Easy A,where she rocked the disco classic "Knock on Wood," that left audiences wondering if it was really her voice. It was indeed, and she was spectacular.
Meryl Streep
For years, Streep was known as the premier actress of her generation, though not as a performer with any musical ability. Starting with 2006's Prairie Home Companion, however, Streep has been unafraid to put her voice out for public consumption. She looked like she was having a blast playing the lead in Mamma Mia! opposite Seyfried and will soon be back on the big screen playing the Witch in the film adaption of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.
Anna Kendrick
Despite starting her career doing Broadway musicals as a girl, the new "It" singing actress first came to notice with largely non-musical roles in Twilight and Up in the Air (although we did get a glimpse with her karaoke version of "Time After Time"). It wasn't until she killed as the reluctant a capella participant in Pitch Perfect that audiences fell in love with her voice. The actresses even scored a hit single with her version of "Cups (When I'm Gone)" from the soundtrack. With roles in Into the Woods and Pitch Perfect 2, we'll get plenty of opportunities to continue enjoying her vocal talent.
Zooey Deschanel
Her work with M. Ward on their She &amp; Him projects have turned Deschanel into a legitimate recording artist, but she's still better known for her acting in movies like (500) Days of Summer and her TV show New Girl. Every Christmas the actress pops up in one of her earlier film roles as Will Ferrell's love interest in Elf singing holiday classics and she's set to appear in Barry Levinson's musical comedy Rock the Kasbah.
Amy Adams
Adams may be a five-time Academy Award nominee and might turn heads on the red carpet with her plunging necklines, but she knows her way around a song as well. The actress made a believable live-action Disney princess in Enchanted, including taking center stage during the big production number "That's How You Know." She apparently likes to sing in kiddie fare, because her other big on-screen musical moments mostly happened with Jason Segel, Kermit and Miss Piggy in The Muppets.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Paltrow's mother, Blythe Danner, started her film career in the musical 1776 and she has an uncle that's an opera singer, so she comes by her vocal abilities honestly. After making her on-screen singing debut in Emma, she starred in her father Bruce Paltrow's Duets, where her collaboration with Huey Lewis on Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'" spawned an adult contemporary hit. Besides having a recurring spot on TV's Glee, Paltrow also got her twang on in Country Strong.
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During one of his trademark rants at the Governors Ball, Kanye West announced that he "could give a f**k about selling a million records," and wouldn’t have a big promotional campaign for his newest album Yeezus. And yet, a day before its official release, the new dad has posted a promo for the album on his website: a shot-for-shot remake of a famous scene from American Psycho.
This recreation has Keeping Up with the Kardashians' Scott Disick donning the raincoat as serial killer Patrick Bateman. He chooses Yeezus as his murder soundtrack rather than Huey Lewis and the News, chopping up Kim Kardashian’s BFF Jonathan Cheban while listening to "New Slaves." While Disick may look like Bateman’s original portrayer Christian Bale, his acting leaves a lot to be desired.
I’m not sure how much of an overlap there is between Kanye and American Psycho fans, but the promo is certainly unexpected, which is what makes it so very Kanye.
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Have a big, glitzy idea for a way to repurpose an iconic or cult-fan favorite film? Look no further than Kickstarter: Hollywood's newest answer for, well, everything. If you give a mouse a cookie, pretty soon they're going to want to take over the whole house.
Today's Kickstarter du jour is for American Psycho: the Musical! Based off the novel by Bret Easton Ellis (and the film starring Christian Bale), the song-and-dance version of Patrick Bateman's life of cool '80s gadgetry, business cards, Huey Lewis tunes, and murder is set to take the stage in London this December — but they need us regular folks' help to do it.
According to the show's producer, Jesse Singer, the musical has been a pet project and "a true labor of love" for himself and the rest of the creative team, which includes Glee producer/screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (who wrote the book for the musical, and tried very admirably to turn around Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway), Spring Awakening and American Idiot composer Duncan Sheik (who also had a string of radio hits in the '90s), and director Rupert Goold (who is no slouch in the British theater world, as he is currently the associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company). And as we all know, any true labor of love begs — nay, deserves! — some funding. So why not make the people you're making it for also pay for its production? Ticket sales, schmicket sales! More is more is more.
For diehard fans, though, the campaign has some rewards to tickle your fancy. You have the opportunity to take some private yoga classes with Sheik (for $3,500), go out to dinner with some of the creators or Ellis himself, own the keyboard Sheik used to write the music, or even have your name written into the musical (for a mere $8,500!). And all for pennies, really! If you happen to have a ton of pennies lying around, that is.
Kickstarter: Making Hollywood's mediocre ideas come to life since 2013. Thanks a lot, Veronica Mars.
Check out the video for the campaign, below.
Follow Alicia Lutes on Twitter @alicialutes
More:Scott Disick's 'American Psycho' Transformation is CompleteBret Easton Ellis Tries to Apologize to Kathryn Bigelow, Fails MiserablyAll the Insane Things Lindsay Lohan Did on Set of Bret Easton Ellis' 'The Canyons'
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A woman accused of taking rocker Huey Lewis' rental car and laptop outside a hotel in California has pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of stolen property. The Huey Lewis & The News frontman, who lives in Montana, had left the engine running on his vehicle on 21 February (13) as he obtained a receipt from staff at the Holiday Inn Express in Mill Valley, where he had been staying during a short visit.
However, the 2012 Toyota Corolla was missing when he came back out and he reported the theft to police.
California Highway Patrol officers subsequently tracked down the car and arrested Katherine Bowyer Gallagher over the incident.
She confessed to stealing the car and claimed to have sold Lewis' laptop and other belongings that had been left in the vehicle.
The 31-year-old suspect reached a plea deal with prosecutors last month (Mar13) and she has now pleaded guilty to felony possession of stolen property, in exchange for a count of vehicle theft being dismissed.
She agreed to serve 50 days behind bars as punishment, although she is expected to be granted time served when she is formally sentenced on 15 May (13), according to local publication the Marin Independent Journal.

Title

Summary

During their 1980s heyday, frontman Huey Lewis brought soul to a string of pop-rock hits generated by his band, the News, including the No. 1 singles "Power of Love," "Stuck with You" and "Jacob's Ladder," as well as the Top 10 tracks "I Want a New Drug," "If This Is It" and "The Heart of Rock-n-Roll." Lewis and his bandmates were veterans of the San Francisco music scene for over a decade before finally scoring their first charting single with "Do You Believe in Love" in 1982, but their genuine breakthrough came a year later with <i>Sports</i> (1983), which reached multi-platinum status, thanks to the band's blend of goodtime bar band rock and Motown-flecked R&B. "The Power of Love," from the 1985 film "Back to the Future," marked their first trip to the top of the pop charts, while <i>Fore!</i> yielded two more No. 1s before changing tastes in rock left their careers deflated in the early 1990s grunge era. Lewis enjoyed a second career as a supporting actor in features like "Short Cuts" (1995) and "Duets" (2000), while continuing to spread the gospel of rock and soul with the News at concerts throughout the United States. A powerhouse singer who straddled the pop, rock and R&B world with equal ease, Huey Lewis remained one of the most successful and beloved artists of the 1980s.<p>Born Hugh Anthony Cregg III on July 5, 1950 in New York City, Huey Lewis was the son of Hugh Anthony Cregg, Jr., a doctor, and his wife, Magda. The family relocated to Marin County, CA soon after Lewis was born, but his parents split during his early teens, which required him to attend High School in New Jersey. A solid student in math, he was accepted to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, but developed a taste for the itinerant, rock and roll lifestyle while hitchhiking across the country. By the time he arrived at Cornell, Lewis had lost interest in higher education and dropped out to return to the San Francisco area in an attempt to break into the music business. In 1971, he joined the roots-rock act Clover, which included journeyman musician John McFee and Alex Call, who later penned "Perfect World" for Huey Lewis and the News and "867-5309/Jenny" for Tommy Tutone. Clover's limited success in the Bay Area scene prompted a move to Los Angeles, where they were encouraged by Nick Lowe to move to the U.K. Their tenure across the Atlantic earned an equally tepid response, despite two albums produced by future hitmaker Robert John "Mutt" Lange.<p>By this time, Lewis, who had adopted the stage monikers "Hughie Louis" and later "Huey Louis," recorded a harmonica track on Thin Lizzy's <i>Live and Dangerous</i> (1978) LP and penned "Bad is Bad" for Dave Edmunds, while Clover, without Lewis, backed Elvis Costello on several tracks from his debut album, <i>My Aim is True</i>. Clover disbanded upon their return to the United States in 1978, but Lewis and keyboardist Sean Hopper continued to perform together in the Bay Area. Together, they formed a new group, American Express, with drummer Bill Gibson, bassist Mario Cipollina and guitarist-saxophonist Johnny Colla, three members of a rival group called Soundhole that had earned a degree of fame for briefly backing Van Morrison. The group recorded "Exo-Disco," a dance version of the "Theme from Exodus," that failed upon release by Phonogram Records in 1979. Despite this setback, the group successfully transitioned to Chrysalis Records the following year, shortly after adopting "Huey Lewis and the News" as their name after the credit card company threatened legal action. A self-titled studio album failed to find an audience in 1980, but its follow-up, <i>Picture This</i> (1982), yielded a Top 10 pop hit with "Do You Believe in Love," which kept the record on the <i>Billboard</i> 200 for nearly three months. The band built up a solid following by touring relentlessly behind the record, which helped to generate major sales for their next and biggest-selling album.<p><i>Sports</i> (1983) shot to multi-platinum status on the strength of four singles - "I Want a New Drug," "Heart and Soul," "If This is It" and "The Heart of Rock & Roll - all of which broke into the Top 10, thanks, in part, to Lewis's blue-eyed soul delivery and handsome sex appeal to female fans. At peak of his fame, he briefly made headlines for filing a lawsuit against singer-guitarist Ray Parker, Jr. over alleged similarities between his theme for "Ghostbusters" (1984) and the News single "I Want a New Drug." The case was settled out of court, after which Lewis produced Nick Lowe's 1985 take on "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)" and several tracks on Bruce Hornsby & The Range's <i>The Way It Is</i> (1986) before scoring a No. 1 hit with "The Power of Love," which received an Oscar nomination as part of the soundtrack for the blockbuster "Back to the Future" (1985). Lewis also contributed a cameo in the film as a hopelessly square schoolteacher who cut off Michael J. Fox's version of the song during a talent contest for it being played too loud.<P>The following year, Lewis and the News repeated the success of <i>Sports</i> with <i>Fore!</i> (1986), another chart-topping album with two No. 1 pop singles in "Stuck with You" and "Jacob's Ladder" as well as an additional three Top 10 tracks. A lengthy tour followed its release, after which the band returned to the studio to release their fifth album, <i>Small World</i> (1988), which failed to break into the Top 10 on the <i>Billboard</i> 200 and generated just one Top 10 hit with "Perfect World." After three straight albums of pop-rock, the band's experiment with jazz elements failed to pay off, signaling that Lewis' time at the top of the charts was coming to an end. Their sixth release, <i>Hard at Play</i> (1991), underscored their dwindling fortunes by failing to generate any Top 10 hits. Lewis and the News changed labels several times before settling with Elektra for <i>Four Chords & Several Years Ago</i> (1994), a collection of early R&B and soul hits that rose no higher than No. 55 on the albums chart.<p>As the band settled into its new status as a touring act, Lewis proved surprisingly effective as a character actor in several major motion pictures, including Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" (1993) and Barry Levinson's science fiction thriller "Sphere" (1998). His most substantial role was in Bruce Paltrow's comedy-drama "Duets" (2000) as a small-time hustler on the karaoke circuit who is reunited with his long-lost daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow). His rendition of the Smokey Robinson classic "Cruisin'," performed with Paltrow, became a Top 10 hit on the U.S. adult contemporary charts while topping the pop lists in Australia and New Zealand. Lewis also remained remarkably active with the News, playing over 50 dates a year while continuing to release albums, including the 2004 concert album <i>Live at 25</i>, which celebrated the band's quarter-century anniversary, and <i>Soulsville</i> (2010), which paid tribute to the legendary Stax Records. <p><i>By Paul Gaita</i>